1. Field of the Invention
This invention generally relates to systems and methods for performing measurements of one or more materials. In particular, the invention relates to a system and method configured to transfer one or more materials to an imaging volume of a measurement device from one or more storage vessels, to image the one or more materials in the imaging volume, to substantially immobilize the one or more materials in the imaging volume, or some combination thereof.
2. Description of the Related Art
The following descriptions and examples are not admitted to be prior art by virtue of their inclusion within this section.
Instrumentation typically employed in flow cytometry provide viable systems for measuring one or more characteristics of (or “interrogating”) internally dyed microspheres (or other particles) to which are coupled fluorescent dyes, fluorophores, or fluorescent tags. The fluorescent dyes, fluorophores, or fluorescent tags coupled to the microspheres may indicate and/or be approximately proportional to a biological reaction that has taken place at the surface of the microspheres. Examples of such instrumentation are described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,981,180 to Chandler et al., which is incorporated by reference as if fully set forth herein. The Luminex 100 line of instruments, which are commercially available from Luminex Corporation, Austin, Tex., essentially are flow cytometers capable of achieving substantially high sensitivity and specificity.
Flow cytometers typically include several relatively sophisticated and expensive devices such as semiconductor lasers, precision syringe pumps, photomultiplier tubes (PMT), and avalanche photo diodes. While performance of such systems is substantially high, the cost of the instruments can be prohibitive for some markets. Additionally, flow cytometers are physically large, heavy and relatively fragile, and typically a trained technician must be on hand at the installation site to perform alignment of the flow cytometers. Flow cytometers also utilize relatively large volumes of sheath fluid to hydrodynamically focus the particle stream into a relatively narrow core.
Imaging using detectors such as charged coupled device (CCD) detectors are employed in several currently available instruments used in biotechnology applications. Many of the commercially available systems are configured to image target human (or other animal) cells. Such systems are not utilized to generate images using different wavelengths of light for determining the identity of the cells or subset to which the cells belong. For multiplexed applications in which CCD detectors are used to measure fluorescent emission of cells, the subset or class of cells or other particles is based on the absolute position of the fluorescence emission within the image rather than the characteristics of the fluorescence emission such as wavelength composition.
Accordingly, it would be desirable to develop systems and methods for performing measurements of one or more materials that are less expensive than currently used systems, that have less complex optical configurations that are more mechanically stable than currently used systems thereby making shipping and installation of the systems easier, that are smaller than currently used systems, that are more sensitive than currently used systems, that have shorter acquisition times and higher throughput than currently used systems, that utilize fewer consumables such as sheath fluid than currently used systems, that enable a final wash of the one or more materials for which the measurements are to be performed, or some combination thereof.